The tragedy at Nutts Corner
What should have been just another routine flight from London into Belfast went down as Northern Ireland's worst aviation disaster when 60 years ago today 27 people lost their lives.
It was a routine flight from London into Belfast that winter's evening of January 5, 1953, for Captain Gordon Hartley, his able crew of three, and 31 passengers on board the British European Airways Vickers 610 Viking.
But as the seasoned pilot brought his plane, the Lord St Vincent, into descent for landing he lost height rapidly, overshot the runway and collided violently with a concrete building which housed instrument landing equipment on the edge of Nutts Corner airport.
One of her engines was already on fire as the plane came down. The roof was sheared off on impact and the plane broke up beyond recognition.
Twenty-seven people died that night, 60 years ago today. Looking at these pictures it is a miracle that eight souls survived. Among them was just one crew member, cabin steward James Young.
He wasn’t scheduled to be on the flight at all. He had swapped shifts with a female colleague because he wanted to have a night at home in Belfast with his family.
Today, the tip of a propeller blade from the passenger plane involved in Northern Ireland’s worst air disaster is the only poignant reminder of the tragedy.
“Every time I look at that piece of aluminium alloy, yellow in colour, I think of the 27 souls who perished that dark evening on January 5, 1953 in a terrible accident in which the British European Airways Vickers Viking was ripped apart,” says Ernie Cromie, senior member of the Ulster Aviation Society which holds that propeller tip in its museum.
“The tip was donated to us by someone who picked it up from the debris at the scene soon after the crash,” explains Ernie. “We keep it as a kind of memorial to the victims.”
Ernie was 11 and living in Banbridge when he heard the news of the disaster on the wireless.
“I’ve been conscious ever since of the awfulness of what happened that winter evening,” says the man whose passion for aviation developed as he grew up and who is a guest at a reception in Clotworthy House in Antrim town today, hosted by the Mayor Roy Thompson, to mark the anniversary of the crash.
That little metal tip, handed to Ernie Cromie by an Annesley Anderson and usually stored away with other precious memorabilia in a hangar at the Ulster Aviation site at the Maze, is on display today at the anniversary occasion, at which Ernie will be telling other guests how it came into the possession of the society.
One man taking a special look at the propeller tip will be Stephen Auld, now living in Is- landmagee and who turned 61 yesterday. He was a babe-in-arms at home in Cavehill Road, Belfast when his mother Patricia was among the victims of the crash.
“She was known as Rosie and was only 29 and she never got to celebrate my first birthday,” he says. “She was returning from a funeral back home in London – before joining the Wrens she was a tailor in Chelsea – and was an air passenger in the days when it was only the aristocracy who could afford to fly.’’
“It's trying to imagine in your mind's eye exactly what happened that night,'' he says.
“The conditions, the feelings of the people as they travelled in towards Nutts Corner, and ultimately crashed.”
There are times when Stephen Auld takes a drive north into County Antrim, and spends some time standing quietly by the side of the busy road, a few hundred yards from the Nutts Corner roundabout.
“My father George was never the same man again although he married twice more after mum’s death. He died in 1995 at 72. They had a wartime romance – he was in the Navy and she was a Wren. My aunt Billie Crowley, my mother’s sister, who is in her 80s, is here today along with my sister Linda who is 64.
“I’m looking forward today to meeting a member of the Control Tower team at the reception. I know the pilot was advised to go round again as he came into land, but claimed that he could see the lights and would get down.
“Witnesses told at the time how the aircraft lost height rap- idly as the pilot came into land, overshot the runway and collided violently with a concrete building which housed instrument landing equipment.’’
However, the Board of Inquiry ruled that the pilot, Captain Gordon Hartley (37), had made an error of judgment, but that no blame could be attached to him because of the very basic lighting system which existed at Nutts